“Are you done?” her father asked, seemingly relieved they would leave at last.
“Not yet.”
As his people returned, the one with the gun voiced what Ulya had suspected was coming. “Citizen Kriegshammer, in the name of the Soviet power, you are arrested. Follow me.”
“Why? I have done nothing wrong!”
The superior dismissed his statement with a wag of his chin. “Move.”
“Vati!” Ulya threw herself to him.
His gun on the ready, the man—a good soul—allowed her to put her hands over her father’s neck. Gently, he freed himself from her embrace and, looking deep into her eyes, said, “Remember, Ursula, who you are. And do what you must according to your own convictions.”
The group made to the door, her father in front with his hands behind his back.
Weak in the legs, Ulya went to the window. She watched them push her father into the back seat, wedging themselves on each side of him. The doors slammed. The car disappeared in the dawn of a new day.
A spark of pain stabbed at her and she leaned on the windowsill, bending forward. And so she stayed bent for a while. There is nothing I can do. She straightened up. Or can I?
To distract herself from the consternation of what had just happened, she went to the kitchen to wash dishes.
It took three attempts at striking the match before it would take, emitting a cloud of sharp-smelling Sulphur. The gas stove gave a bit of warmth, but she still shivered while she dealt with the tea cups and plates.
In her father’s room, all was upside down, his wardrobe emptied on the floor. She bent to pick up his scarf of soft wool and raised it to her nostrils to inhale. Ignoring the musty odor of moth balls, she pressed it to her face and her mind drifted to that time when her Vati would come to her bed to wish her good night. When did he stop doing it? She was six. The day she killed a bird, she pushed her father’s hand off and kept on doing it the subsequent nights. That was when he ceased touching her cheek, limiting himself to, “Sleep well, my Schätzchen” while standing on the threshold. Now, she remembered it with bitter regret. At this first dawn without her Vati, Ulya cried, rent by a terrible heartache. Even as a child, she had never cried before.
Two days later, on Friday, she set off for the university to pick up her work placement.
The dean’s secretary took a paper from the file, looked at it for a long moment then at Ulya. “Wait, I must talk to Mikhail Stepanovich.” She got up and disappeared behind the door.
“Kriegshammer?” Ulya turned to see the dean. “My apologies. The factory from Ryazan that requested a judicial consultant sent a telegram stating they don’t need one. I must look into the matter and what if you come in a week or two? We’ll have something for you.”
But when, ten days later, she came to see the dean again, he was on vacation, and his secretary carried his words to Ulya. “We could not find any position for you. Mikhail Stepanovich asked me to tell you that if he succeeds in it, we’ll send you a letter.”
Did they take her for stupid? She’d find a workplace herself, she resolved.
It took Ulya another two weeks to visit and to speak with heads of human resources departments in seventeen enterprises. Four of them had positions for specialists of her education and were eager to take her, but those positions disappeared by the time she came to do the necessary paperwork.
She lived through the days doing her usual chores without thinking. The pain ceased and in its place a cold, dark presence settled. Her attempts to find where her father was jailed proved futile. The answers were identical: “No record.” “Is unaccounted for.” “Not listed.”
13
Natasha
End of August-September 1939
Vitebsk
Not long ago, Natasha preferred to stay for an extra shift rather than attend Komsomol meetings, but lately, she looked forward to them. The morning pleased her with a placard on the message board announcing an extraordinary joint Communist and Komsomol members meeting at the plant’s assembly hall. As the shift was over, she hurried there to get a place close to the podium. She made every effort to control her facial expression so as not to reveal how disappointed she was by his absence among the leaders at the chairman’s table. And how startled she was at his voice, addressing her, “Comrade Ivanova, is this place vacant?” Forgetting she was to keep the chair for Elvira, she nodded twice. “Please, take a seat, Sergey Vladimirovich.”
“Comrades! Comrade Communists and Komsomol members!” The plant’s partorg—the Party secretary—rattled a pencil at his water glass jar and rose to speak. “Attention! The meeting is called to order!” He waited till the audience calmed down. “Comrades, as you all know, the foreign policy of our government and personally Comrade Stalin’s is aimed at maintaining peace in Europe. We, as trusty assistants of the Soviet Communist Party and, with a view of strengthening the role and authority of the Soviet Union as a pillar of peace in the world, should remain constructively committed to this ongoing process,” the partorg proclaimed in one breath then took a sip from the thick glass tumbler. “As you may have heard on the radio, today in the night—”
“We worked our night shift,” a voice came, supported by a single chuckle but the orator couldn’t hear it and went on, “the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union.”
A collective sigh of relief escaped many throats. The speaker continued elucidating the benefits of the agreement. “Precludes any aggressive actions . . . providing for the peaceful and friendly settlement of disputes . . .valid for ten years . . .”
Confused, Natasha turned her mind to her school days when from history class she knew—and
